Seniors With Highest GPAs Inducted Into Early Cum Laude Society

Eighteen seniors received recognition last fall for placing in the top five percent by grade point average of the graduating senior class. Yena Cho, Julie Chung, Owen Duke, James Foye, Lily Friedberg, Ethan Gould, Meena Jagadeesan, Henry LaFond, Mandy Lu, Peter Luff, Holly MacAlpine, Andre Oravitan, Stephanie Pan, Jacob Pressman, Arianna Serafini, Angela Song, Caroline Sullivan and Samuel Tan were all inducted early into the Cum Laude Society.

On the last day of spring term, the next 15 percent of the graduating class with the highest grade point averages were also honored. Faculty members in the Exeter chapter of the Cum Laude Society both handled the induction process and planned receptions held at the beginning and end of the school year to recognize all the inducted students.

“I’ve found the same pride [as in receiving early cum laude] in other aspects of my time at Exeter, such as the friends I’ve spent time with and the clubs I’m involved in.”

The Cum Laude Society serves as a means to recognize students for their academic accomplishments and hard work during their time at Exeter.

President of the Cum Laude Society at Exeter and mathematics instructor Jeffrey Ibbotson explained, “The Cum Laude Society was established by Exeter and several other private schools to function as an honor society.  The model for it was Phi Beta Kappa honor society for collegiate scholastics.” The society’s selection process is solely determined by students’ GPAs.

Students took it as a great honor to be recognized for early Cum Laude. Serafini said, “It’s great that my hard work over the course of my time at Exeter has paid off in such a quantifiable way that it can be recognized by something like early cum.”

Cho said, “Of course Exeter is much more than grades and numbers, but it does feel nice to receive recognition for four years of hard work.”

However, some students such as Luff felt that receiving early Cum Laude was not of great significance to them because induction was determined purely by grades, not their participation in class or involvement on campus.

“Grades matter somewhat, but what matters much more to me is how much I learn in a class and the quality of the work I do,” he said.

Song agreed with Luff, emphasizing that a student’s experience in a class can oftentimes be more meaningful and important than the final grade they receive.

“[Being inducted] speaks nothing to the individual experiences I’ve had in each of my classes, especially since I have gotten some of my worst grades in some of my favorite classes at the end of the day,” she said.

Even Secretary of the Cum Laude Society and science instructor Mark Hiza said that a student doesn’t “really ‘gain’ anything by membership in the Cum Laude.”

Serafini described the Cum Laude Society as “silly,” noting that receiving recognition for early Cum Laude was insurmountable to all the other various aspects of Exeter.

“At the end of the day it’s just going to be one more thing to add to my Resume. …The whole thing is really silly because grades are so arbitrary and correlate so loosely with the actual effort each student inputs into their academics,” she said, “GPA lacks so much more nuance that honestly a whole society built off of it is a little bit stupid.”

She also added that Cum Laude does not include the level of the courses that a student took. She believes someone who takes easier classes and receives high grades is less deserving than a student with a slightly lower GPA who has challenged him or herself with difficult classes.

While grades have always been important to LaFond, he has made an effort to focus on more than just them during his time at Exeter.  “My grades are fairly important to me, but not all-consuming in my life,” he said. “I certainly worked hard to obtain good grades, but I tried not to stress out over them too much.”

Indeed, LaFond didn’t even know that the Cum Laude Society existed at first. “I hadn’t really thought about it too much before and thought it was nothing more than a list published in The Exonian,” he said, before adding that despite the honor’s lack of significance in some areas of life at Exeter, "it was gratifying to be inducted and recognized with my peers for our hard work.”

Other students like Song felt that receiving early Cum Laude was the beginning of their reflection on their Exeter experience. “It was kind of a surreal moment because the ceremony sort of served as a reminder that I’m near the end of my time at Exeter,” Song said. “I’ve found the same pride [as in receiving early cum laude] in other aspects of my time at Exeter, such as the friends I’ve spent time with and the clubs I’m involved in.”

At the end of the day, induction into the Cum Laude Society is still seen as an impressive achievement by most, and it can often times be rewarding for a student to receive well-earned acknowledgement for their work in academics. Cho concluded, “I feel honored to be a part of the Cum Laude Society.”